twintubdexter
Well-known member
I thought a few people may find this very interesting concerning how Hotpoint began near me in Ontario California.
A Brief Independence
An Enduring Brandname
Over the years a product's success can lead to its brandname becoming a part of our everyday vocabulary. When we say Jell-O, we mean gelatin (or, more likely, a sweet, gelatinized side-dish); when we want a facial tissue we ask for a Kleenex; and the use of "Xerox" to refer to a photocopy is so widespread that lower-case "xerox" is in the dictionary meaning just that.
A company's growth can lead it to develop products much different from those that gave it its original identity, and the brandname can come to stand for quality rather than a specific product (although sometimes it can lead to some amusing oxymorons, as in one of our daily-use appliances, a Frigidaire oven). One such brandname is Hotpoint, which had its beginning with a single product in 1905 but by 1913 came to be, according to their advertising literature, "the largest exclusive manufacturers of electrically heated household appliances in the world." Hotpoint's origin is well told by Earl Lifshey writing in The Housewares Story:
The development of the entire electric appliance business was seriously handicapped by a problem which was in no way the fault of the manufacturers: the scarcity of electric power. What was even worse, almost all the power companies - they would not be referred to as utilities until later - thought of electricity only in terms of lighting.
"Load building" was unnecessary and had not even been considered. Only a very few of the largest power companies supplied electricity during daylight hours when women usually did their laundry.
But in 1903 at least one utility man had been thinking about this problem. He was Earl Richardson, plant superintendent of the power company in Ontario, California. Part of his duties included reading meters in the homes they served, and he frequently talked to homemakers about the idea of an electric iron. Few housewives wanted any part of the heavy, cumbersome irons they had seen.
Richardson's interest was twofold. For several years he himself had been experimenting with an iron. Also, if women began to use electric irons the demand for electricity would be increased, and then perhaps the power company could operate around the clock.
He went to work refining his earlier model, making it smaller and lighter. It had a glowing resistance wire wrapped around a large brass core which absorbed the heat and conducted it to the base of the iron.
Several dozen samples were made up and distributed to power company customers to try. He then convinced his management to generate electricity all day on Tuesdays so the customers could use the irons. They were a great success, and the demand grew so fast that the following year he left the power company and, with outside financial backing, formed the Pacific Electric Heating Company with four employees to manufacture electric laundry irons.
Then he ran into trouble; the expected demand for the new iron failed to materialize, and a lot of complaints came in from unhappy users. Yes, they conceded, Richardson's iron was better than the others they'd seen; but it had one major fault - it overheated in the center. When he asked his wife about it, she suggested he make an iron with more heat in the point, where it was needed to press around buttonholes, ruffles, pleats, and so on. He did just that, developing a new iron in which heating elements converged at the tip. In 1905 he again placed samples with homemakers he knew.
When he came back a week later none wanted to part with "the iron with the hot point." That was it! He had found the formula for success and a name. That year he made and sold under the new "Hotpoint" trademark more electric irons than any other company in America.
A Brief Independence
An Enduring Brandname
Over the years a product's success can lead to its brandname becoming a part of our everyday vocabulary. When we say Jell-O, we mean gelatin (or, more likely, a sweet, gelatinized side-dish); when we want a facial tissue we ask for a Kleenex; and the use of "Xerox" to refer to a photocopy is so widespread that lower-case "xerox" is in the dictionary meaning just that.
A company's growth can lead it to develop products much different from those that gave it its original identity, and the brandname can come to stand for quality rather than a specific product (although sometimes it can lead to some amusing oxymorons, as in one of our daily-use appliances, a Frigidaire oven). One such brandname is Hotpoint, which had its beginning with a single product in 1905 but by 1913 came to be, according to their advertising literature, "the largest exclusive manufacturers of electrically heated household appliances in the world." Hotpoint's origin is well told by Earl Lifshey writing in The Housewares Story:
The development of the entire electric appliance business was seriously handicapped by a problem which was in no way the fault of the manufacturers: the scarcity of electric power. What was even worse, almost all the power companies - they would not be referred to as utilities until later - thought of electricity only in terms of lighting.
"Load building" was unnecessary and had not even been considered. Only a very few of the largest power companies supplied electricity during daylight hours when women usually did their laundry.
But in 1903 at least one utility man had been thinking about this problem. He was Earl Richardson, plant superintendent of the power company in Ontario, California. Part of his duties included reading meters in the homes they served, and he frequently talked to homemakers about the idea of an electric iron. Few housewives wanted any part of the heavy, cumbersome irons they had seen.
Richardson's interest was twofold. For several years he himself had been experimenting with an iron. Also, if women began to use electric irons the demand for electricity would be increased, and then perhaps the power company could operate around the clock.
He went to work refining his earlier model, making it smaller and lighter. It had a glowing resistance wire wrapped around a large brass core which absorbed the heat and conducted it to the base of the iron.
Several dozen samples were made up and distributed to power company customers to try. He then convinced his management to generate electricity all day on Tuesdays so the customers could use the irons. They were a great success, and the demand grew so fast that the following year he left the power company and, with outside financial backing, formed the Pacific Electric Heating Company with four employees to manufacture electric laundry irons.
Then he ran into trouble; the expected demand for the new iron failed to materialize, and a lot of complaints came in from unhappy users. Yes, they conceded, Richardson's iron was better than the others they'd seen; but it had one major fault - it overheated in the center. When he asked his wife about it, she suggested he make an iron with more heat in the point, where it was needed to press around buttonholes, ruffles, pleats, and so on. He did just that, developing a new iron in which heating elements converged at the tip. In 1905 he again placed samples with homemakers he knew.
When he came back a week later none wanted to part with "the iron with the hot point." That was it! He had found the formula for success and a name. That year he made and sold under the new "Hotpoint" trademark more electric irons than any other company in America.
